Christian world

Ancient monuments of Christian culture have been discovered in the sands of the southern desert of Saudi Arabia, reports the Linga portal with the reference to news agencies.

It is reported that a French-Saudi team of archaeologists carrying out excavations in the desert of the Najran region has discovered numerous inscriptions, carved on the Kaukab mountain around the 5th - early 6th centuries AD. Specifically, experts in the Nabataean language managed to identify the words “Murtad” and “Rabi”, mentioned in the so-called Book of Himyarites – the list of names of the Najran Martyrs who suffered for Christ in around 470-475 (but most probably c. 522) under the usurper Yusuf (Dhu Nuwas) the apostate, who converted to Judaism.

On 29 January 2015, Resolution 2036 (2015) tackling intolerance and discrimination in Europe was adopted at the winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

The Parliamentary Assembly called on the Council of Europe member States to ensure that the right of all individuals to freedom of religion and belief is respected, uphold the freedom of conscience in the workplace, promote reasonable accommodation so as to encourage the media to avoid negative stereotyping against Christians, in the same way as for any other group, and respect the right of parents to provide their children with education in conformity with their religious convictions.

A group of archeologists recently discovered a Church on the shore of the Lake İznik. İznik, historically known as ancient city of Greece called Nicaea, is a town and an administrative district in the Province of Bursa, Turkey. The town lies in a fertile basin at the eastern end of Lake İznik where the remains of an ancient basilica have been discovered.

The big church was built under the name of St. Neophytos a beloved Christian in the middle ages. According to the pundits’ calculations, the church collapsed during an earthquake that occurred in the region in 740. The church was built in honor of St, Neophytos who was killed as a Christian Martyr by Roman soldiers in 303 before the Edict of Milan, and a proclamation that permanently established religious toleration for Christianity within the Roman Empire.

ISIS has opened a special market to sell property it looted from Assyrian homes and churches in Mosul. The market, called “Spoils Of The Nazarenes,” sells televisions, refrigerators, microwave ovens and other electronic devices, as well as furniture and artwork. Prices range from 50,000 to 75,000 Iraqi Dinars ($42 to $63).

Snow and frigid cold blanket Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley, where nearly 400,000 Syrian refugees living in vinyl tents with packed dirt floors struggle to clear snow and stay warm. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) reported that more than 100 tents have caved under the weight of heavy snow, and many others face the threat of their only shelter collapsing.

International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC) is helping those in greatest need cope this winter with the distribution of heating stoves and fuel vouchers to 550 refugee families and vulnerable Lebanese families. Since 2012, IOCC has provided humanitarian relief to more than 2.4 million Syrian people living as refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Armenia, and to Syrians displaced in their own country by the prolonged civil conflict.

Pope Francis said Sunday he will make a one-day trip in June to Sarajevo, the Bosnian capital, his latest visit to a country where Islam is the dominant religion amid growing persecution of Christians in the Middle East.

Francis told pilgrims after the weekly Angelus prayer in St. Peter's Square that he would visit Sarajevo June 6 to pray for peace and inter-religious dialogue in the Muslim-majority city that became a bloody symbol of the Balkans wars of the 1990s.

His trip will be the first papal trip to Sarajevo in 18 years. Francis called on the faithful to pray that his visit would be a boost for the Catholic population, and "give rise to the development of good and contribute to the consolidation of brotherhood and peace."